Governor signs bill making all lottery winners in Oregon anonymous
Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill into law Thursday that will make all lottery winners in the state anonymous unless they consent to having their names released, regardless of the game they won or the size of the prize.
Oregon has been one of 23 states that publicly discloses the names of all lottery prize winners. Last year, The Oregonian/OregonLive analyzed that information and found millions of dollars in winnings have flowed to a business in Australia or been rerouted to local opportunists who purchase scores of winning tickets from the true owners at a discount, claiming the full prizes for themselves.
Lawmakers pledged to prohibit the latter issue. But in the process, they tacked on a secrecy provision to the reform bill. That bill sailed through the Oregon Legislature this spring and the anonymity amendment received no substantive discussion in committees that vetted it or on the floor of either chamber.
The new secrecy provision will take affect 91 days after the end of the legislative session, eliminating a key transparency provision for both the games and the Oregon Lottery, which is now the second largest source of state funding behind the personal income tax.
Kotek, who as governor had the power to veto the bill, endorsed the change while offering her first public comments on it.
In a bill signing letter she sent Thursday to House Speaker Julie Fahey and Senate President Rob Wagner, Kotek said that although the anonymity amendment received no opposition, it raised important questions about the Oregon Lottery’s responsibility to ensure participation is safe while ensuring transparency and integrity in the system.
“As governor, I believe that safety and transparency are not mutually exclusive and can be achieved concurrently. Given this, I will direct the agency to continue to make non identifying winner information such as city and ZIP code data readily available,” she wrote.
“I believe the Oregon Lottery will maintain strong oversight of the system.”
The original aim of House Bill 3115 was to prohibit lottery prize winners from selling their tickets to third parties at a discount, with opportunists then redeeming the tickets for their full face values. A newsroom investigation last year found that Oregon has a cottage industry of entrepreneurs who annually buy millions of dollars worth of tickets from the original winners for 50 to 80 cents on the dollar. Some of those individuals deduct the price they pay as a business expense on their personal taxes.
The practice enables tax evasion on the full value of the prize. It also allows the original winners to get paid a portion of their winnings while potentially avoiding past due child support and other debts to the state, which can be garnished when tickets are redeemed at lottery payment centers in Salem and Wilsonville.
The newly passed law will prohibit such ticket sales and disallow the deduction of the purchase price of any ticket from the buyer’s taxable income in Oregon. Kotek, in her letter, wrote that the new anonymity clause does not prevent the Oregon Lottery from sharing winners’ information with state and federal tax authorities or other agencies to determine if a winner owes back child support or other debts to the state.
In 2019, when Kotek was House speaker, lawmakers proposed a similar bill to keep the names of some lottery winners secret. That bill advanced through the House but didn’t receive a Senate vote.
The latest anonymity effort drew supporting testimony from Darian Stanford, a Tonkon Torp attorney who works with an international company that buys lottery tickets in Oregon. Stanford described the supposed “lottery curse” to lawmakers, in which jackpot winners’ lives are ruined because their names and winnings are made public, and they are subject to doxxing and harassment.
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/05/governor-signs-bill-making-all-lottery-winners-in-oregon-anonymous.html#:~:text=Gov.%20Tina%20Kotek%20signed%20a,of%20all%20lottery%20prize%20winners.